How I Made My Dog's Muzzle for Two Dollars

In this new town in which I live, large dogs like mine have to wear muzzles, by law. I have gone through four muzzles and countless collars for my full-grown German Shepherd, because she simply doesn't like them. She pulls on them until she tears their fiber and/or steel to shreds, or until I lose all desire for walking with her. She bucks like a bronco that can't be broken.

Many people have suggested choker collars, but my dog just pulls until her throat is sore and infected, and needs medication. She gave herself a week-long fever this way, requiring medicines, baths, and respite from all collar use entirely. Store-bought chokers and collars and muzzles simply are to uncomfortable and unsufferrable to work on my German Shepherd.

Yesterday, I bought a six-inch piece of 4-inch diameter PVC pipe (typically used for downspouts and waste pipes, and I drilled some quarter inch holes in it. I threaded it in various ways with 3/16 inch steel cable, covered with plastic (available at most hardware stores, and I put this homemade four dollar muzzle over my dogs mouth, threading the cable through her collar so that she can't remove the muzzle just by pulling on it.

This is the most comfortable muzzle she has had, leaving her nose completely unencumbered and allowing to drink at will, even with the muzzle on. She doesn't seem to resist keeping the muzzle on even in the house, which makes it far easier to me to spontaneously go walking with her, without fighting her over putting a muzzle on.

I think I will paint her muzzle "Publish Post" orange, so that she will be more visible in the night. She likes to walk ten yards ahead of me, so its safer, right, if she's more visible? I might mix yellow and red paint, or I might save myself some trouble and by some orange spray paint at the hardware store.